Monday, July 13th , 2015
39 Parliament St, 11th Floor at 6:30 p.m.
Directors Present:
- Phylis Coles (President)
- Claudia Pardo (Secretary)
- Hamida Hassanzada (Social Committee Chair)
- Julie Beddoes (Development Committee)
- Lester Brown (Past President)
- Jose Castillo (390 Cherry Street Representative)
- Marien Breen (Representative for 80 Mill Street)
- Parrish Offer (Director at Large – Communications)
- Sheila Iseman (Treasurer)
- Hamida Hassanzada
- Salim Jamal (Vice-President)
- Keith Veira (Director at Large)
- Ken Yim (33 Mill Street Representative)
- George Hume (Representative for 39 Parliament)
- Corinne Bryers (70 Mill Street Representative)
- Susan Kushneryk
Phylis Coles, President, called the meeting to order at 6:35 p.m. assumed the Chair. With the consent of the meeting, Claudia Pardo, was appointed Recording Secretary for the meeting.
2. APPROVAL OF AGENDA
A MOTION was made by Julie Beddoes and seconded by Salim Jamal to approve the Agenda. MOTION CARRIED.
3. MINUTES OF JULY 7, 2015 MEETING
Approval of Minutes of the July 7th meeting was deferred to our next meeting as it was an organizational meeting.
4. REPORTS:
4.1 Treasurer’s Report – Sheila Iseman
- Balance as of today is $5,018.35.
- All 6 buildings have joined the GWNA and membership keeps growing.
- 59 people signed up at the Neighbour’s Night Out
- We’re at 186 members.
- Much of the activity came from the Neighbours’ Night-Out
- In the process of updating the database, invites were re-sent for being part of the List Serve. Please check your email for the invite. If you haven’t receive it please contact membership@gwna.ca
Website:
- Notice went out regarding moving vendors for our web host. In the last couple of years we’ve been able to see what our needs are. One of them is where our website is hosted. Our new provider is a Canadian company with servers located in Montreal and they follow the same privacy rules across Canada.
- Migration to the new server shouldn’t have any effect on the behaviour of the website.
- Twitter has 160 followers. We have a good base but it’s not as large as the one for Corktown for example.
- Facebook. There’s some good amount of activity on Facebook.
- Both channels are useful tools for reaching out.
- We’re trying to get a new issue out in September. Any articles that can be shared with the community and can be of interest to people can be included. Articles can be sent to president@gwna.ca
- Deadline is second week of August
- The same report for last meeting and as contained in the Minutes of July 7th.
- Julie asks if people are interested in receiving the Development Report, she would send it through the List Serv.
- Possibility to having a Halloween event at each condo. The representative of each condo might be able to confirm if that’s something feasible.
- Julie proposes to have separate event for children held by the GWNA and to keep it separate for each building.
Sue Kelleher from Program Standards & Development Officer, Parks Forestry & Recreation
- Sue provided some facts about Parks Forestry & Recreation (PFR from this point forward)
- o Provides free programming to over 40K residents
- o Takes care of 4.1 millions trees (3M belong to Parks)
- o Manages about 1.2 million passengers in the ferry
- o Manages 125 community centers, 30 indoor arenas, 52 outdoor rinks and other indoor areas among other activities.
- - Structure of PFR:
- o 6 branch division:
- Parks
- Urban Forestry
- Community Recreation
- Management services
- Capital projects
- Policy and strategic planning
- PFR looks for community engagement
- They develop tools, training sessions such as lunch and learn for their staff
- Provide advice to staff on how to engage in different activities
- Coordinate division-wide engagement initiatives
- Collaborate in other divisions who are also doing other engagement activities
o Stakeholder groups include Resident Associations, Friends of groups, councilors, BIA’s, Community Development Officers, Community Health Officers and Youth Outreach Workers (focused mainly in working with youth).
- Sue shows a map showing the amount of stakeholders per Park Supervisor. It shows that areas downtown have more stakeholder groups (more engaged) than areas in Scarborough for example.
- An online toolkit is being designed in order to help PFR staff to get to the right contact name and also to organize logistics, design an agenda, develop a notice to advertise an event, or share a notice with the public for example. The idea is to have, by the end of the Summer, an interactive stakeholder map ready.
- For further questions contact:
Sue Kelleher - skelleh@toronto.ca - 416.338.6162
Q&A:
- Why would PFR want to get in touch with the resident’s association?
R/ PFR want to have feedback from the community and see how they can engage further. Opening up a new channel. - Waterfront Toronto has a lot of reach, how do you see your process of reach compared to that of Waterfront Toronto?
R/ Part of the PFR staff also makes part of the table of Waterfront Toronto. - Are you involved with advocacy in regards to developments?
R/No. Their work is getting the work done and that the community voices are included in the decision-making process.
- Development application process for the Triangle Lands:
- After the public meetings that were held some months ago, issues regarding density, shadow among others, City Planning staff met with the applicant to outline the issues in greater detail. They met with City planners last week. Results:
- No concrete plans to say this is the tower that will be built and its specifications
- They have more questions that are interested in getting feedback from the community
- Suggested to come to a round table group with representatives of the buildings surrounding the sites.
· Q. When you say a round table, is it a limited number of people? R/Yes, in order to facilitate a more detailed discussion. There’s no proposal to bring to the community yet. The working group permits for a longer session with more questions to answer. After this, public meetings will be held.
· Q. How will these people be selected? How to make sure that it’s not only people supporting the developer? R/It’s not expected that there’s a sided representation. Phylis adds that the people that are there are the representatives of each building and are there to discuss the concerns of the people in their buildings. Everyone has a chance to talk. Proposals are in place before decisions can be reached. At the Development Committee’s level they have a meeting with City Planning Staff on this issue.
· What’s the timeline that Pam McConnell sees this starting to operate? R/Summer is not the time where many businesses are conducted. If there are enough people in August to start them, then they will begin then.
· Has a decision been made in regards to the Heritage designation of the area? R/The Distillery District has an extreme amount of heritage study but it’s not a Heritage Conservation District (which in such case would be affected by specific provincial legislation). The Distillery District hasn’t been designated as such.
· What if it is designated as a Heritage Conservation District? Will everything change in regards to the project? R/The applicants agreed not to proceed to the OMB because they’re willing to sit at the table with City staff. They’re playing nice.
· What did heritage services say about the Patio of Boku? R/Tom doesn’t know the answer to that yet. They don’t want anything adhere to the base of the building.
- First Parliament Site:
o Future site of the public library and some sort of community space
o Previous step was to analyze the soil of the site, in order to preserve the heritage features of the site. In order to consider if some sort of glass form of viewing the environmental consultant said they have to go through a 3rd Phase done in May. The work’s just been completed and they’re ready to meet, but they haven’t decided when the meeting is happening.
o Next step is how to commission an architect/designer to work on plans for the area.
o Library is to begin construction in 2017. There’re still a lot of issues with soil underneath and dealing with that is going to be very challenging.
o Q&A:
§ How can a Library be built in 2017 if the dealership has a lease for 4 years? R/The City will take some time while they remediate the soil.
- Mill Street Project:
o The public team that was coordinating it agreed to meet in June but the meeting hasn’t happened yet. However this will not affect the fact that the project is happening in 2016.
o Q&A:
§ Are they going to remove the Hydro poles? R/They’re going to work around them. Doing otherwise means adding more time and money to the project.
- When Mill St opens up again there will be access to Corktown Common, but this hasn’t been fully clarified yet as there will be some construction going on in Canary District. They’re trying to have Mill Street open all the way to have a more direct access to the park.
o Q&A:
§ Do you think we might have access to it sometime in the fall?
· R/There’s not certainty but what they’re trying to do is have Mill Street opened all the way to the park. There are administrative processes and approvals to get yet.
§ Taxi stand where relocated
· R/They informally found their own system to reorganize themselves.
§ Why if Trinity St is a large street, why do we have such wide sidewalks instead of having another lane? R/ Trinity St has been a subject to discussion. A streetscape program is still pending after the Games end including how traffic will flow through that street.
§ Will they be able to move the taxis back to Trinity St instead of leaving them on Mill St? R/There might. Tom will bring the proposal.
- Gardiner Expressway:
o Julie: City Council asked City staff to examine other possibilities. The results of that will be reported to Council in September. For 10 years there’s been an EA on the Gardiner (resulting from many public meetings as well) and it’s not clear how the new proposals relate to the terms of reference of the EA. Lester: In 2001 there was a meeting focused on the Gardiner with that same proposal being rejected back then. The tunnel proposal is also difficult that happens given that going below the river will mean a very steep curve underneath it.
Phylis invites the community to enjoy the Pan Am Games activities in the area and to provide feedback.
11. Next Meeting:
- No meeting in August. Next meeting: Monday, September 21st, 2015 at 70 Distillery Lane, Fifth floor.
12. Meeting Closed
Meeting closed at 8:15 p.m.